She expected to hear something trite, but in the end he surprised her, even made her rethink her conclusion that he was lonely, for which she was quite glad. She didn’t want to feel any sympathy for him, after all.

It was a subject that he no doubt intended to cover with her, and it could merely have slipped his mind for a moment, which had given her the wrong impression. But he knew he had something to bring up, had asked her to stay so he could, then couldn’t recall what it was.

Perfectly logical; it happened to everyone on occasion. For her to have surmised that he was lonely, merely because a subject eluded him for a moment, was rather far-fetched on her part. Wishful thinking again? Absurd. She merely needed to stop making assumptions about him.

“Did my physician attend to your brother yesterday?” was his forgotten question.

“Yes.”

“Good. I wanted to make sure that my servants didn’t keep him so busy that he might have run out of time to see everyone who needed his attention, but he left before I could speak to him.”

She smiled. “No, I believe he mentioned that Thomas was his first patient of the day.”

“And the boy’s progress?”

“Still recovering nicely, though he must continue bed rest for another week or so.”

“He must have deplored that news.”

“Ah, you remember what it was like to be that age?” she replied.

It was a natural question following his remark, yet it brought an immediate frown to his brow that she couldn’t help wondering about. She refused to ask what caused it, though. The less she knew about him, the better off she would be, she was sure.

So she continued as if he hadn’t just caused her a great deal of curiosity. “Yes, Tommy hates having to remain in bed. He’s never been this ill before, at least not with anything that required such a lengthy convalescence, which is why I try to spend as much time with him as I can. We also had to let go his tutor, so I’ve been filling in there as well. Though with nothing better to do, Tommy is so far ahead in his studies, I don’t know why I bother.”

“Intelligent boy?”

The frown had left as quickly as it came, making her think she might have imagined it. “Very. It was why he was being taught at home. The headmaster of his last school refused to advance him to a higher age group, yet what he was being taught was nothing that he didn’t already know.”

“Such decisions can be made for other than academic reasons,” he pointed out.